Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday June 20, 2006 @12:47PM
from the aggressive-not-passive dept.

NiteStar writes "Dano2k0 created a fully internal water-cooled Xbox 360. Unlike previous water-cooled Xbox 360 mods, this one has everything inside the original Xbox 360 case, including the water reservoir and pump. Both CPU (Zern GPU block) and GPU (Koolance GPU-180-H06 block) are water-cooled, with internal Tank-o-Matic mini reservoir, 12v thermaltake pump and DD fill port on the plexi window. The case itself is also customized with a plexiglass grill and LEDs, and it's fully custom painted. The case mod will also be featured in the next edition of the Official Xbox Magazine UK."

I have one from the origional production set. It has never crashed, and it has never "locked up". It does not run that hot. Mine is in an A/V rack with a good deal of high-end equipment. I have never had a problem.

Other than the "coolness" factor, I don't see where this mod is a necessity. I would not mind it (or a similar mod that replaced the noise of the stock fans)if it quieted down the 360, however. There are times when mine sounds like a harrier preparing for vertical flight take-off. While its not a big deal when I am playing games, it can be annoying when I am streaming video/movies/wm9HD from other machines. I have been wanting to tackle replacing the fans and openening the ducts a bit to see if I can quiet it myself. A smaller replacement for the huge power brick would be welcomed as well.

I may have simply been lucky in that my 360 has never crashed or overheated, but I just don't see a reason for all the quality complaints. Especially from non-360 owners whose only basis is hearsay.

Correction: Third parties make attachable fan units because people THINK the 360 has heat problems.

Disclaimer, maybe there are some people who are having trouble, but I don't think it's as bad as it looks to the internet surfer. I had some heat trouble with my original XBOX, no such trouble with the upgrade.

Wouldn't this technically be illegal in terms of the 'license' you have to use the hardware?

Remember ye olde 'mod chips' that MS went after tooth n nail?

It just strikes me as a wee bit hypocritical to then feature such a blatant violation of the license in an 'official' MS magazine.

Now, I understand that this actual 'change' doesn't affect how the Xbox actually works. But I'd also bet that the license doesn't differentiate between mod'ing a chip and ripping out the innards to display them in your

No, this is not illegal, but it will most definitely void any sort of warranty you might have. Even changing the operation of the system might be against Microsoft's Terms of Service if you try to go online with it, but the idea that changing your system's case (something that you OWN) would be "illegal" is certainly a scary thought.

ModChips are not illegal because they violate any hardware license agreement. Unlike software which you typically buy a license to use (MS/Apple/etc. own the software, and sell you a license to use it - you own nothing), you typically buy hardware (you own you Xbox/PowerBook/OptiPlex/etc.).ModChips are illegal because they are promoted as being useful for circumventing copyright (i.e. "Buy this ModChip and play burned games!"). In Australia, ModChips are legal if they are only promoted for the purposes of

Or to use your example, you can put any water pump that you want on your GM product, but GM has no responsibility for it - if it doesn't work, it's your problem.

OTOH, GM won't void your warranty for using a non-Delco replacement water pump, though they can void your warranty for running the car over heat for too long; OBD-II (1996 and later) vehicles actually store a log of some of the sensors, including the coolant temperature sensor, so they actually can figure out if this has happened just with a sca

OTOH, GM won't void your warranty for using a non-Delco replacement water pump, though they can void your warranty for running the car over heat for too long; OBD-II (1996 and later) vehicles actually store a log of some of the sensors, including the coolant temperature sensor, so they actually can figure out if this has happened just with a scan tool on newer cars.

And of course because GM and their dealers are the only people with access to the magic tool, it's a thoroughly reliable way of testing wheth

OTOH, GM won't void your warranty for using a non-Delco replacement water pump, though they can void your warranty for running the car over heat for too long; OBD-II (1996 and later) vehicles actually store a log of some of the sensors, including the coolant temperature sensor, so they actually can figure out if this has happened just with a scan tool on newer cars.

And of course because GM and their dealers are the only people with access to the magic tool, it's a thoroughly reliable way of testing whet

Aside from running a bit cooler, does it actually affect performance in any way? And I'm assuming the power brick still gets nice and toasty, too. I can't check for myself cos of wonderful wonderful Websense.

Well, wait a minute then. Physics would demand that if the cooling system is contained in the box as well, then all this heat WILL make it's way out of the box (or worse, be contained in the box). And since were adding imperfect moving parts, it only serves to create more heat spitting out of the box. Pretty redundant, all in all...

You just get a more juicey steak (provided there's a leak in the water line)!

Nope, I'm an American. We just didn't have a lot of money. So the closest thing to steak we ever had up to age 16 was boiled (or slow cooked in water) rump roast or very cheap sirloin. I'm 25 now and I know the meaning of a real steak. Prefferably grilled (not 360ed), and if you have to put sauce or seasoning on it, you didn't cut it or cook it right.:)

In retrospect, I'm sure that you could put a teflon coating on one of those bigger heat-sinks... That would be the best computer ever... provided you could find a chip that didn't mind running around 150-200C with the heat sink. Yeah, probably not.

[blockquote]The case mod will also be featured in the next edition of the Official Xbox Magazine UK."[/blockquote]So the "official" mag is going to advise its readers on a fancy way to scuttle their warranties?

So the "official" mag is going to advise its readers on a fancy way to scuttle their warranties?

I would expect that people who do these types of major mods understand that it involves breaking the warranty, goes without saying, doesn't it? Would anyone at all actually assume that after they tore apart their xBox (or anything, for that matter), they could ship it back to the manufacturer and say "it's broke, please fix it for free"? Nope. I don't think so.

Having seen this sort of thing in official mags before, they usually put massive warnings over the articles telling you about it voiding your warranty. Besides, are we supposed to feel sorry for people who don't have any common sense these days?

A lot of people are asking why or pointing out that the power supply is what really needs cooling. I feel I should point something out.

The whole point of consoles is that you shouldn't need to do bullshit like this. Clearly someone at Microsoft severely fucked up if people are finding it necessary to modify their XBox 360's just so they don't overheat. Once you start having to do all of that all you have is a cheap computer (not ever that cheap) that can't do all the other computer type things.

Failures to understand things like this will ensure that Microsoft never turns a profit in their gaming hardware division and why Nintendo will keep going. Nintendo provides me with an appliance that just works for what it was designed for.

This is of course not to say that doing stuff to consoles isn't fun or worthwhile. I thought the XBox to PC mods were a real hoot, but before this generation, no one has felt the need to mod just to make their hardware work properly (ancient consoles excluded).

Failures to understand things like this will ensure that Microsoft never turns a profit in their gaming hardware division and why Nintendo will keep going. Nintendo provides me with an appliance that just works for what it was designed for.

Sounds an awful lot like another argument I've been hearing:...this will ensure that [...] Apple will keep going. Apple provides me with an appliance that just works for what it was designed for.

Yet, Microsoft/WinTel still hold the lion's share of the market. I don't

Even something as simple as the way that their laptops work. I've been developing since about '82. Use a lot of UNIX, have traditionally run Windows, recently moved my laptop over to one of the new MacBooks. Being able to open up the lid and have everything (and I mean everything) just up and running, with no wait, is wonderful. And that includes wireless networking. The number of small delays that were "slightly" frustrating under Windows that have just plain disappeared is amazing. And since you can

Dunno why you Mac guys have so many problems running Windows, but I bet it's user error.

There is my problem with running Windows- it's not cool. Why spend hundreds or thousands on what is basically (to me since I don't do any real work on my home computers) a toy only to get the non cool version? My Macbook looks great on the outside and the OS looks great on the screen.

The button up world of Fortune 500 can have their boring Dells running X

Wow - you managed to find the only *nix-based player that handles backslashes in.m3u files - congratulations!

(I am exaggerating, of course, but not much. Both my previous preferred MP3 player (Noatun) and my current one (amaroK) don't handle.m3u playlists with backslashes as path separators, though at least they put up a nice "fine not found" error instead of crashing. Of course, Winamp and other Windows players probably only support forward shashes by accident - the Windows API allows you to use a for

The whole point of consoles is that you shouldn't need to do bullshit like this. Clearly someone at Microsoft severely fucked up if people are finding it necessary to modify their XBox 360's just so they don't overheat. Once you start having to do all of that all you have is a cheap computer (not ever that cheap) that can't do all the other computer type things.

There's no *need* to do this, just as there wasn't a *need* to replace a console's orange LED with a blue LED. The Xbox 360 doesn't need this mod

Clearly someone at Microsoft severely fucked up if people are finding it necessary to modify their XBox 360's just so they don't overheat.

Just because someone did the mod doesn't mean that it was necessary. Look at all the effort people put into things that are completely unnecessary. People have modified Nintendo consoles as well, does it mean they also screwed up?

Maybe if people BOTHERED TO READ THE DAMN SETUP MANUAL/DOCUMENT, they wouldn't be complaining about the XBox 360 overheating. Nah, its far simpler to just blame Microsoft instead of the dumb ass consumer who sticks a power supply on a shag carpet or next to a 250 watt stereo that pumps out more BTU/hr than a small server.

When I started looking at consoles a couple years ago, I came to the exact same conclusion.I used a new scientific method I call the "store test", which is basically if a store can't keep it on line, I don't really want it.

As I went through Target, Kmart, Bestbuy, Wal-mart and anywhere else with the "Three-console display" I took effort to note what was up and what was crashed.

XBox--rarely up, maybe 1/3 of the time (A very optomistic estimate, I think). Almost always had some kind of internal error--probab

And unless you want it quieter, there's no point. The problem with the Xbox 360 is merely that if you put it in an enclosed space, it just makes too much heat. It's not that it can't exhaust the heat. Well, since this produces the same amount of heat (slightly more) in the same space, it'll have exactly the same problem.

So unless you just want to make your 360 quieter, skip this. And the real noise in the 360 comes from the DVD drive anyway.

These are the same idiots whose entry into the console market was taking expensive commodity pc parts and shoving it into a big ugly black box.

I'm sorry to burst your fairytale fantasy, but any other console has been a small computer in disguise too. Your beloved Nintendo or Sony or whatever don't run on magic and pixie dust either, but, guess what? Use a CPU, a graphics card, RAM, etc.

E.g., the Dreamcast had the same graphics chip that was available in PC graphics cards too, a modem that you could have bou

"Oh yes, I'm sure that _you_ could single handedly emulate every single game in existance, on a different CPU and a different graphics chip and all. Emulation isn't a trivial affair buddy, and it becomes increasingly problematic because of ever increasing complexity of the system you're trying to emulate. Yes, I'm sure everyone can wave Zsnes as proof that a console can be emulated, but look further up the food chain. It took several teams about 6 years to emulate a PSX acceptably. (But any existing emu sti

I'm so tired of all the wannabes who case mod their PC with a hundred extra fans and a bling bling paint job and post about all their computer expertise and how much they could overclock it.

It's just boring, and it's not computer science. A 5% overclock is pretty much insignifigant. Wake me up when somebody comes up with some cool new algortithm that improves a process by at least an order of magnitude - thats where the real performance gains come in.

Water has a much higher specific heat than either alcohol or mineral oil, so it makes a much better coolant. Plus, it's cheap and pleantiful. There's a reason most vehicle cooling systems are water based these days. Distilled water is not very electrically conductive either so it's still pretty safe if a minor leak occurs.

There are still some real hardware hackers out there but it's getting harder to casually hack hardware nowadays. Radio Shack is a bleedin cell phone store now. Home Depot and Lowe's have picked up some of the slack but to go out and casually play with hardware is a lot harder than it used to be. I still remember my first hardware hack. I made my NES a top loader by taking a Game Genie (for the socket), a ton of wire, a soldering iron, and some screws and removing that stupid ZIF socket once and for all.

"Unlike previous water-cooled Xbox 360 mods, this one has everything inside the original Xbox 360 case, including the water reservoir and pump...The case mod will also be featured in the next edition of the Official Xbox Magazine UK."

If I were Microsoft I'd be plain embarrassed that my flagship design for the mouth-breathing console masses was so poorly engineered that cooling the fucker has become a cottage industry.

I think the market is ready for an entrant that "just lets me play my fucking game". I

And before you ask, yes I use a DVD player that lets me skip past the warnings, preview nonsense, etc.

What brand is it? Seriously, I've been looking for one, and I haven't been able to find any recommendations in Google. And I don't want to buy DVD players randomly until I luck out. So, could you share the brand and model, so I can run and order one from Amazon?

Never played one. Let me be more specific for the boys without pubs out there: my last consoles were the N16 and the Sega Genesis.

"I was busy playing Guilty Gear and Final Fantasy VII."

Good for you. About the same time those came out I think I was making my first mil and sleeping with real women, but if those video games brought a little bit of meaning to your life, don't let me bring you down.

About the same time those came out I think I was making my first mil and sleeping with real women, but if those video games brought a little bit of meaning to your life, don't let me bring you down.

Wow. What an *asstarded* thing to say. Someone enjoying themselves and garnering a little entertainment is worth LESS than money (pointless in the long run) and unfulfilling promiscuity? Now if I missed something and you're being sarcastic or ironic, I apologize and take it back, but otherwise... wow. If

I find it relatively funny that so many people are complaining about the 360 being a 'ticking time-bomb', and that people continue to claim that Microsoft is 'digging their grave' with the faulty hardware. I, beg to differ. While there have been a lot of issues with the console release, there were just as many at PS2 release and no one seems to equate these two situations because Microsoft is some 'horrible evil'. I own a 360 launch console and I have yet to have any issues whatsoever, and I'm not in the minority, either. There are a lot of incidents you hear about where people's 360s are on the fritz and you don't hear about those who are working... And for good reason. Why would someone complain or post on a message board that their XBox 360 is working just fine? You've fallen into the trap of believing only what you see because there is no real need to report on the other side of it. It is just like when something awry goes on in any aspect of the world - you only hear the negative because there is little incentive to report on the positive.

All of my friends and peers that own first generation 360 consoles still have them intact and working with little to no problems whatsoever. I know you hate Microsoft, but making unsubstantiated claims and implying that all consoles are faulty is preposterous. Don't pull the 360 from the market until it is officially broken. There may be issues right now with some consoles, but they're not as widespread as it would appear.

I agree 100%. My lauch console has never crashed or frozen once. None of any my friends have experienced a problem either. I am willing to be that half of the complainers don't even own a 360 console. It's getting ridiculous.

Google around for people that have gone thru plenty of PS2s, plenty of Apple POwerbooks, or MacBooks.

More fool them. If the hardware sucks, why keep going back for more of it? Understandable I guess if you're covered by a warranty - up to a point, but not really understandable outside the warranty unless you own a massive library of titles.

As for MacBooks, I'm surprised to hear people going through plenty of them as they're only just out.